Digital service subscribers are beginning to be offered various types of rich content over their Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connections. Streamed videos, multicast videos, real-time communication, videoconferencing and network-based gaming applications are examples of such rich content. Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) hosted application cards represent one example of means for offering such rich content via DSL connections.
As subscribers are offered such rich content over their DSL connection, hard-drive storage space resident on a subscriber's data processing computer, set-top box, etc) will often be a limiting factor in performance of the subscriber's data processing system. For example, as a hard drive resident on a subscriber's data processing system fills up, performance of the subscriber's data processing system can be adversely impacted.
In an effort to offer subscribers with a solution to limited resident hard drive space, Application Service Providers (ASP's) offer high-capacity information storage services (e.g., on a hard drive) over the Internet via ASP-managed network equipment (i.e. Internet Access Storage). Telecommunication (Telco) service providers presently do not offer high-capacity information storage services via Telco access network equipment. Internet Access Storage (IAS) is often unreliable and inefficient due to network congestion. Furthermore, for any number of reasons, IAS is generally not suitable for storing and running applications. Public access network hosted storage via disk drive units are primarily used to store files, not applications.
The introduction of DSLAM-hosted application cards will require that many DSLAM's have high-capacity storage space (e.g., hard drive disk space) for storing content and database files. The alternative would be for each application card to be designed with storage drives (i.e., card-hosted storage). Card-hosted storage adds expense, physical size, and power consumption to each card. Furthermore, card hosted storage often provides less than adequate available storage space. In some cases, such expense, physical size, available storage space, and power consumption may make limit the practicality of associated application cards being hosted within a DSLAM. Other than on-board memory and Flash disks, there is presently no type of high-capacity storage apparatus available for content storage on a DSLAM.
Therefore, methods and equipment adapted for hosting storage services at a DSLAM in a manner that overcomes the limitations associated with conventional methods and equipment for providing network-based storage services is useful.